Cleveland Rape Crisis Center Workers Accuse Management of Union Busting, Threaten to Strike

Sydney Givens, a grant manager at the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center in Clark-Fulton, spoke on Wednesday about leadership’s failure to bargain in good faith. Credit: Mark Oprea

A year after employees of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center unionized, several claim that leadership has yet to fully respect that decision.

A handful of case managers and their union reps stood on the sidewalk outside CRCC’s Clark-Fulton location on Wednesday morning to criticize higher ups, especially CRCC President Nicole McKinney-Johnson, for failing to bargain with the year-old union in good faith.

That harangue, in partnership with the Service Employees International Union District 1199, came a week after SEIU charged CCRC of bad-faith bargaining, or refusing to take their grievances seriously, according to documents filed May 8 with the National Labor Relations Board.

They were the sorts of complaints that led to an overwhelming union vote last April, of 32 to six in favor, that funneled into Tuesday’s outcry: understaffing; overbearing workloads; lack of top-down transparency; and layoffs last year that seemed to avoid letting go white employees.

Nicole Sigurdson, an organizer with SEIU 1199, spoke out against what she sees as an attempt by leadership to union-bust. Credit: Mark Oprea

“Since the employees first unionized, leadership has created more and more top-level positions,” Nicole Sigurdson, an organizer with SEIU 1199, told press in attendance, “eroding our power by unilaterally deciding these positions will not be represented by the union.”

Irritation with C-suite executives, and a feeling of their unwillingness to listen to outside thought, has pushed several worker bases into seeking union cards as a way to combat work environments turned hostile—from Starbucks baristas to healthcare workers at a GE facility in Aurora.

And on Tuesday, 76 employees at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History filed petitions to form a union, under the years-long claim that CEO Sonia Winner’s my-way-or-the-highway approach to leadership led to a massive string of layoffs and departures since 2019.

For Jessica Acord, a clinical manager at CRCC who’s been here since 2020, said that a top-down dismissal of union concerns has led to an uptick in visits to HR—herself included.

“Calling someone ‘negative’ is a really great way to dismiss what they have to say,” Acord said, referring to leadership. “It’s like talking to a wall. They’ve already decided they’re right, and what we have to say doesn’t matter.”

SEIU reps present told Scene that CRCC will head to the bargaining table in late May and early June, with hopes that their concerns—especially high client loads—will be alleviated by a new agreement.

A spokesperson for CRCC did not respond to Scene in time for publication.

“We will bargain in good faith with the union to develop a contract that supports the long-term success of both our employees and CRCC,” a statement last year to Signal Cleveland read.

“As we move forward together,” they added, “we will continue to remain fiercely focused on our mission and meeting the needs of survivors of sexual violence who lean on us for support.”

Founded in 1974, the center helps survivors of sexual assault with counseling and victim assistance in the legal system across Northeast. They have about 80 employees, 43 of which are union-eligible.